advanced learners: 8 ways to support them at home

01 | 12 | 2014

The following guest post is written by Natalie, of Afterschool for Smarty Pants. Natalie shares ways she enriches her daughter’s learning at home, after school. Check it out.

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As you can guess from my blog title, Smarty is a gifted learner who loves books and enjoys math and science, so these subjects are the main themes of my blog. She is now in the second grade and attends our local public school.

I will not go into details in this post as to why we are not considering “skipping” her at this point. You are welcome to visit my blog where this year I will write more about advocating for and supporting gifted learners in school setting.

In this post I want to share some ideas about what you can do at home to support your academically advanced children.

8 Ways to Support Advanced Learners at Home: n this post I want to share some ideas about what you can do at home to support your academically advanced children.

I am honored to be here at Teach Mama today.

As you can guess from my blog title, Smarty is a gifted learner who loves books and enjoys math and science, so these subjects are the main themes of my blog. She is now in the second grade and attends our local public school.

I will not go into details in this post as to why we are not considering “skipping” her at this point. You are welcome to visit my blog where this year I will write more about advocating for and supporting gifted learners in school setting.

1. Give Them Time

Our gifted learners already spend too many hours a day trapped in the classrooms doing what others want them to do. They need time to unwind, to think, to read, and to tinker. It is good for them to be bored and to be able to find creative outlets for their brain power. If you want them to do something extra, consider sports or arts classes. Our daughter goes to gymnastics once a week and attends one after school class (it was stop motion animation last term) that is given during the time that she would normally spend in her Y after school.

2. Strew Things

What is strewing? Basically, it’s leaving interesting things for your children to discover. It can be books, maps, building materials, toys brought back into circulation, or art supplies. I caution, however, from doing it every day, or you will turn back into the source of their entertainment. Our gifted learners, just like everyone else, need to learn to find happiness on their own.

3. Limit Screen Time

With abundant options in educational software and video products, it’s so tempting to let electronic devices teach our children something that they didn’t get in school. I believe that school age children should have access to technology, but this access should be limited and supervised for younger children. Our daughter has 30 minutes a day of screen time that she can accumulate up to 3 hours to use all at once on the weekend if she wishes to do so (she mostly prefers to use a little every day). If you want to know what sites Smarty frequents, jump here.

4. Play Games

Put away that worksheet already! There are so many wonderful ways to spend time together and teach your children bysimply playing games. You can check out our favorite games for brainy kids, and I also want to recommend this terrific list of Math Games for different ages. Playing against parents or older siblings might also give our children a very valuable lesson in losing gracefully or accepting the fact that they might not be the best at everything.

5. Challenge Them

It’s true that our advanced children are usually not challenged in the classrooms in the areas of their strength, and this is why it’s important to challenge them at home – not necessary with complex math problems even though we do that as well, but also with challenges that require using more than one skill and, ideally, cooperation with a buddy or a sibling. You can check our mystery substance challenge and an engineering challenge, and we plan to have these challenges regularly this year.

6. Teach Them Life Skills

It might not be easy to get advanced learners to focus on practical skills. My daughter is would much prefer read in her room than load a dishwasher. I believe it’s really important to teach our advanced learners cooking, taking care of their clothes and cleaning their rooms. They will appreciate it when they are young adults and need to spend more time on their studies than they do now.

7. Spend Time in Nature

Our advanced learner is a “thinker”. Sometimes it’s hard to get her out of the house, but time spent in nature or even simply playing outside is very important to children like her. She gets to engage her other senses and her whole body while interacting with the world outside her safe routine of home and school. It’s even better when friends or siblings can join this time of exploring and discovering nature around us.

8. Find “Teachable Moments”

You don’t need to be available to your children at all hours to support them. I work full time in technology sector, and my time with my family is limited. Nevertheless, even 30 minutes a day can go a long way if you really tune in to your child. Time in a car, time before bed or dinner time all could be great opportunities to connect to your children, learn what they are interested in and lead them to new discoveries.

Jo, we had to work on this – we have defined times when parents simply “not available”, and our 7 year old is left to her own devices for those times. You can always give him chores if he wants to be entertained